


Frenchie's First (and Last) Stand

by Ford_Ye_Fiji



Category: Original Work
Genre: Chickens, Chill, Gen, Gunshots, Storms, aka my brother, based on eyewitness accounts, frenchie is a rooster, he got scared, not meant to be offensive, poor chickens, pssssssh, some blood, this actually happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-15 19:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7235965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ford_Ye_Fiji/pseuds/Ford_Ye_Fiji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a storm, some chickens, several nervous people, and a beast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the house

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, clarification. I live in a rural area. The middle of the woods, chickens, cats and the constant threat of raccoons, possums, foxes, and the like. Two days ago, there was this huge storm. There was a tornado warning and then after it stopped, there was thunder, lighting, and lots of rain. No biggie. 
> 
> But, something weird happened and well, I decided to dramatize it, though at the time it felt like a cheap horror movie. These are eye witness accounts and I thought it was interesting enough to post. 
> 
> There is some blood. 
> 
> Oh, Frenchie (the rooster) was named Frenchie (by my family) because his comb is smushed so it looks like a beret. It was not intended to offend French people and if you are French, well, sorry.

* * *

It was a dark and stormy night. The rain slashed against the deck of the house brutally, only illuminated by the gloomy smears of light from the house.

Thunder rumbled as the clouds lit up with bright white light. For one brief second, the world was exposed and the people stumbling outside could see.

Then everything was dark again.

The curly haired woman stood outside on the screened in deck, hugging herself worriedly. Sprinkles of the driving rain smattered against her as she peered into the gloom.

It had started when she heard the soft mewling noise, the family worried for the second cat that had not made it into the house before the storm, had decided to check on him.

The two men of the house, the father and the oldest son had long since left, swallowed by the dark night and the pouring rain. The woman jumped slightly as several rapid flashes of lightning and a loud 'crack-a-boom!' emitted from the emptying clouds.

The second cat had returned already, looking as if he had been dunked into a lake.

The men had not.

The woman called for her husband nervously, "Dan?"

There was no response, only a low rumble heralding a sense of foreboding. The clouds continued to pound the muddy ground with torrents of water.

She turned to go back inside and closed the door, her brow furrowed as she was once again bathed in the warm golden glow of the incandescent lights.

Her oldest daughter sat on the floor, with the first cat in her lap. She hugged her cat to her chest, fingers combing through the long fur. The other feline that had emerged from the outside was attempting to lick it's fur clean.

The large cat in the girl's arms meowed pitifully as it stared at the door with eyes the size of teacups.

After a moment, the mother spoke, "I don't know where they are."

The girl opened her mouth to speak, but her words were interrupted by one... Two... No, three loud gunshots.

The noise sliced ominously through the night, not nearly as loud as the thunder that had cracked overhead, but more dangerous in its meaning than anything else.

 


	2. In the woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything gets really freaky.

When Ivan, the oldest son, had checked for the cat outside he hadn't expected to be approaching the chicken coop on the basis of faint and eerie screaming.

But that's what he'd heard.

That's what his mother had heard.

Lighting flashed overhead and his pupil's contracted at the sudden light. He blinked as the rain obscured his vision and his eyes adjusted once again to the blinding darkness.

The grass bent under his Crocs and mud seeped up into them.

He opened the door to the spacious fenced in area where the chickens resided when not roosting in their coops.

His flashlight beam cut through the rain and shone off the droplets. The rain was so thick that he couldn't see more than two feet in front of him.

He swallowed as his flashlight beam came across the first of the chicken coops. A small brown one that was only to keep the food away from nighttime predators.

The metal screen covering the door had been peeled back, up, and out. The food trough was turned over, the pellets scattered across the ground.

Ivan turned back, "Dad, there's been a chicken attack."

He moved forward, not noting the lack of response. He waved the flashlight beam over and saw the first chicken, trembling in it's roosting area. It's wide eyes stared at him in fright, as he examined it. The little silvered laced Wyandotte was unharmed. Shaken, but fine.

He turned and spotted the trail of brown feathers next. They led off into the woods. Had they lost one of the two brown hens already?

Then he saw the shape standing against the fence, staring towards the woods.

The chickens usually ran as soon as they approached, but this chicken didn't move. Ivan walked softly, twigs snapping underneath his feet and the thunder rumbling over his head,

He was finally close enough that the beam could cut through the rain and drooping leaves. It was the small black rooster. The fat rooster, Frenchie, that ran away from everything and only cared about the food now carelessly spread across the wet ground.

The chicken still didn't move, it's muddy feet planted in the ground as it stared stoically at the dark woods, the trees bending and groaning in the unrelenting rain and wind.

It was strange and rather frightening, he wished the rooster would move or do _something_.

It did and Ivan rather wished it hadn't.

Frenchie turned his head jerkily, wet feathers plastered across his neck. The chicken's beady eye was glazed and staring off into the distance, the other one was obscured by thick red blood.

Frenchie's entire front was covered in the stuff, slowly being diluted by the rain. Ivan wasn't sure what the rooster had injured, the lightning flashing in patches to reveal more blood and gore coating his head.

His Dad finally appeared beside him and they decided that the best course of action was to the put the chickens in the other far more sturdy coop.

He gently herded the shaky rooster, covered in blood and mud and still half staring at the woods in horror, into the coop. The little slack hen followed.

Ivan swept the beam one more time and there, he found the last two hens. Two little brown balls of wet feathers, stared meekly at the flashlight like a deer in the headlights.

They were missing quiet a few of their feathers, leaving stark white patches standing out in the gloomy unceasing rain.

The chickens were pliant as they picked them up and deposited the miserable creatures in their pen. Ivan closed and locked the door as a fork of lightening streaked across the night sky.

It was then that the bushes moved and his father glared at them. They froze, rain obscuring their vision and blurring the darkened world around them as they stared intently at where the noise had come from. The bushes moved again, a small mound of something dark moving in the woods.

His father took three quick, clean, shots.

Ivan winced as the noise rang around his head and echoed off into the woods, not nearly as loud as the booming thunder in the raging sky.

They waited.

Whatever had been there was gone.

The two turned back towards the house, shoes squishing in the mud and slipping over sharp rocks. They left the chicken coop safely locked as they trudged back towards the dim, hazy, and rain obscured house.

The clouds continued to pour rain, throughly soaking all of the miserable creatures that resided under the ocean of condensed water vapor that emptied its cache of water down upon them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been several days now and Frenchie is feeling better. The swelling on his eyes is going down. Yay! 
> 
> We think it was a Racoon that attacked the chickens and we've set some traps. Everywhere. 
> 
> So yeah. If you have questions, I'll update the chapter.
> 
> (I feel like I'm talking to myself...)
> 
>  
> 
> UPDATE: Today, July 10th, Frenchie died. He was blind in one eye and was very clumsy. We think he might've starved, not having enough food and such. We did feed him and give him water, but obviously it wasn't enough. 
> 
> We just buried him. 
> 
> Luckily, we did catch the culprit and our rooster has been avenged.


End file.
